Apple defined ICE as a "protected class" in blocking anti-ICE apps

Their paywall is no different to any other paywall, so it is clearly not because of the paywall

But intelligence and law enforcement aren't the same thing, and the CIA is specifically prohibited from operating domestically. Valiant attempt, but talking about law enforcement (again, as opposed to intelligence) activities that take place in public is a matter of settled law. We decided that you're allowed to warn people that the police are around, even if it will help people get away with crimes, as a first amendment matter when we decided that police can't make it illegal for you to flash your lights at an oncoming driver to warn them (https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/headlight-flashing/). There's no steelman for this, Apple is just trying to preemptively comply with an administration that considers civil rights inconvenient.

Apple and Tim Apple are here for profits. They could not care less if you, the customer lived or died, as long as your check clears.

Source: Tim Apple sucking up to Trump like he's the antidote. This is even more ironic considering Tim's sexual orientation and Mango Jabba's take on "the gays".

I'm generally very anti-Apple when it comes to their draconian control over the code I'm allowed to execute on hardware I've purchased. However, I'm going to devil's advocate this situation for a minute (and I do mean the devil, because that is what Apple is):

Very broadly speaking, my position that I feel strongly on is: Apple should enjoy a right to distribute or restrict whatever apps they want through their app store. They might have a reasonable right to restrict what apps can be installed on their operating system and the means through which those apps are installed; I could be convinced either way depending on the day and I would not lose sleep if precedence is established in either direction. But they absolutely should not have any rights when it comes to restricting what operating systems I can run on their devices. I outline that only to state the context and framework within which the next paragraph is typed.

If Apple doesn't want to carry and distribute the anti-ICE app, I think that's their right. Apple's problem right now is that this unilaterally now means that the native application can no longer be executed on iOS, and that is a problem, but let's pretend like it isn't and that this app is now only available through the Epic Games App Store (or wherever). Why is this situation better for the anti-ICE app than just being a web app? This should be a web app, right? It shouldn't really rely on any native capabilities.

Phrase this another way, flip this on its head: the anti-ICE app wants in the App Store because of the marketing and ease of distribution it enables, which I feel are not natural rights developers should have when making applications. Its similar to freedom of speech; you have a right to speak, but you don't have a right to be heard. You should have a right for your app to be available (not all apps can be web apps; but this can). You should not have a right to ultra-streamlined distribution through Apple's servers.

I understand why this is a flashpoint, and I think its important that we push Apple on this issue because there should be more options when it comes to running code on mobile devices. However, functionally speaking: Y'all should just make this a web site.

100%. There is even a very strong national security argument for the US Government allowing Apple this level of control over the hardware that ~200 million Americans carry.